First Trip to New York City
Posted on Oct 13, 2009 under Travel | No CommentThe first time I made to New York City was in August of 1996. I went with the Unlikely Theater Company, and we had three shows lined up for the “99 Plays in 99 Days” schedule, to be performed off-off Broadway on 42nd Street. I stayed for a few nights with my friend who lived at the time in Alphabet City. It had been a long trip, as budget travels usually entail, and then in the humidity of the August afternoon, we had walked–towing our wheely suitcases, me with a bald head–as I played the role of a French woman accused of treason during WWII, and with Robert rollerblading along with us in a neon pink tank top, from the Algonquin Hotel to my friend’s flat.
We would have been quite a sight in any other American city, but in New York, we were normal. We got to his place on Avenue C and went up the eight flights of stairs, by the 5th flight I almost started to cry as I was just so hot and tired. And although I later choose to grab a room at a boutique hotel in New York close by because Robert’s place was so tiny and I felt as though I was imposing, the first few nights I spent in Manhattan are forever in my memory banks and in my heart. It seemed to me when I was younger, that cliches were boring, a sign that one is not moving on, a kind of generalization I just wasn’t comfortable with, however, my first 2 hours in Manhattan changed that for me forever.
I took a shower, grabbed a Rolling Rock beer and a smoke, and crawled out Robert’s kitchen window to sit on the fire escape. I’d always wanted to that since seeing Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, playing Moon River on her ukulele. While I was out there, taking in the feeling of one of the most loved cities in the country, far off in the distance someone started playing a jazz tune on the saxophone. I was an actress at the time, so drama was my middle name…I started to get tears in my eyes. It was one of the loveliest events of my life. It was a love-at-first-sight event. It was my first trip, but it definitely wasn’t my last.
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